CHAPTER 2: "Market Day"
When Felipe opened his eyes the next morning, sunlight poured through the open doorway, forming a rectangle of sunlight on the hard-packed dirt floor. The storm had passed on through. The air felt cool, but since it was early July, Felipe knew that wouldn't last. It would become hot soon.
As memories of the nightmare rushed through his mind, a storm still surged in his heart. The mere thought of anything happening to his parents or to him was enough to shake him considerably.
I don't want my mamá and papá to die! he thought, as he rose to his feet.
For a long moment, Felipe gazed thoughtfully at his mother kneeling at the firepit. Then he leaned against the wattle-and-daub wall, and scanned the hut. The hut had just one room and no windows. The roof consisted of straw thatch. Rafters supporting the thick thatch extended from wall to wall. The entrance had no door, only a reed hanging that Juan rolled up toward the overhang of thatch during the day.
The firepit consisted of a circle of stones in which firewood was arranged. It rested on the hard-packed dirt floor in the left-hand corner of the back wall. His mother's comal now lay directly over the blazing, crackling fire. The smoke drifted upward toward the thatch and out the doorway. Consuela's grinding stone lay next to the firepit. A wooden chest stood against the back wall; a small crate that served as the family altar stood next to it. Reed baskets lined the wall on both sides of the crate and chest.
One of the sleeping mats, made of reeds, leaned against the right wall. Juan and Consuela shared that one. The other still lay on the floor. Felipe bit his lip. He would have to hurry if he were going to get dressed, roll up his mat, and do his chores before breakfast.
After Felipe had donned his white trousers and a blue cotton shirt that had narrow black lines running across it, he rolled up his sleeping mat and leaned it against the wall. At that moment, his father appeared at the entrance and scowled at Felipe. "Comin'!" Felipe said.
The little boy followed his father outside to the wattle-and-daub barn, where the burro and the goats waited to be fed. "Felipe, you milk Bala," his father ordered, picking up the pitchfork.
Nodding, Felipe squatted next to the she-goat and placed a wooden bucket underneath her. As he pulled the goat's teats, his hands shook. He couldn't stop thinking about his nightmare. Every time he'd had it, the dream would scare the daylights out of him.
Once, he leaned back and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. Pain exploded on top of his head as his father struck him.
"Get to work!" Juan scolded. "That goat can't wait all mornin' to be milked by a lazy boy!"
"S-sorry, Papá," Felipe mumbled. He grasped the two teats, one in each hand, and pulled. A stream of milk sprayed into the bucket.
"If you'd stop bein' such a baby, you'd be all right." Juan raked the soiled hay toward the side of the barn and spread some clean, sweet-smelling hay over the floor.
Felipe hung his head and fought back the misery welling up in his heart. "I can't help it," he said. "That dream scares me. I don't want you and Mommy to die."
"We're not goin' to die." Juan shook his head. "Now finish your chores!" He scowled at his son. "Only a baby lets a little dream scare him like that. I can't stand seven-year-old babies! They drive me crazy." He wiped the beads of sweat off his face, then resumed raking.
"I'm sorry, Papá." Felipe bit his lip. "I'll be good." He fought with the guilt that welled up in him. Once again, he had let his father down, and he hated it.
Can I be good? Felipe wondered, silently. Can I be brave?
Without another word, the two completed their chores. Felipe finished milking the goat, then carried the bucket into the hut. After Juan and Felipe ate their breakfast of hot cornmeal mush, tortillas, and goat's milk, Consuela knelt on a sitting mat to eat her share. Her husband and father went outside to weed the cornpatch.
All morning, father and son worked outside in the hot sun. After they had pulled every weed from the rows of corn stalks and the beans, Juan chopped wood and Felipe arranged it in a pile. Then Felipe ate some cold tortillas for his midday meal. He was not yet required to eat only twice a day as his parents did.
After siesta, the Cortez family loaded baskets and mats Consuela had woven of reeds onto the burro's back. She draped a yellow woolen shawl around her shoulders, and her husband and son donned their ponchos and wide-brimmed sombreros. Felipe's sombrero was made of straw, and Juan's consisted of homemade gray felt. Consuela had made it for him when Felipe was five years old. Felipe pushed his back till it dangled from its string.
Market day's goin' to be fun, Felipe thought, skipping on ahead.
The family led the burro toward a nearby farm. Felipe's godparents, Paco and Alicia Lopez, lived on that tenant farm, along with their orphaned nephew, Rafael. The boy was seven years old, same as Felipe. A low hill divided the two farms, serving as a boundary.
As the Cortez family reached the top of the hill, the Lopez farm came into view. Like the Cortez hut, the Lopez hut was made of wattle and daub, consisted of one room, and had a straw-thatch roof. The barn stood at the far end of the two-acre farm, and the cornpatch lay in the front yard. The stalks of yellow corn now stood taller than Felipe. Paco Lopez stepped out of the cornpatch with his hoe and stopped when he saw the Cortezes approach. He wiped his perspiring forehead and smiled his welcome.
"Hola, Juan! Consuela." Paco's brown eyes twinkled merrily as he waved at the family approaching. "Hola, Felipe."
"Hola, Godfather Lopez." Felipe waved.
The stocky farmer turned toward the doorway. "Alicia! Rafael! They're here."
Rafael raced out the doorway, twirling his straw sombrero by the string. Alicia stepped outside, with a bundle of dried herbs in her arms. "I'm ready." A brown shawl was draped around her shoulders.
Felipe hurried toward his godfather, who hugged him. The two families walked toward San Miguel de Bajio, located two miles east of their farms.
The Cortezes and the Lopezes had lived near the pueblo de San Miguel de Bajio all their lives. They had to; since they were peons, they couldn't live elsewhere. Their two-acre tenant farms were owned by Don Esteban de la Curillo, a wealthy landowner who owned thousands of acres in the vicinity, as did quite a number of other caballeros. Juan and Paco worked in his fields during certain parts of the year, and gave a percentage of their crops to him as payment for their rent.
The two families attended confession and Sunday Mass together, except for Juan. They participated in market days and fiestas together, and often worked side by side. Felipe and Rafael had recently started attending catechism class together (Rafael had been going all spring). Since Felipe had no grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins, the Lopezes were the closest he had to actual relatives. Rafael had lived with his aunt and uncle since the death of his parents when he and Felipe were four years old.
Felipe loved the kindhearted farmer. Not only was Paco considerably nicer to Felipe than his own father, he was a talented singer, musician, and storyteller. Felipe never spent any time with him when Godfather Lopez did not sing to him, play his mandolin, and/or tell him a folk story, one of many he knew by heart. Of course, Consuela told her son stories, too. Most of them were stories of her own childhood, or the childhoods of her long-deceased parents.
Felipe trotted next to his godfather, who looked down at him from time to time and smiled. The smell of hard work--perspiration and stink--wafted off his body toward Felipe's nostrils, as did that of the other adults. Sweat stains covered Paco's shirt.
Rafael skipped on ahead. A dark-brown poncho hung from his shoulders over his wiry frame. The wind ruffled his coal-black hair.
Felipe nestled against Paco, who hugged the boy to his side. "It's a great day for me to be walkin' to town with my favorite godson," he said.
Felipe grinned. "I love you, Godfather Lopez." Paco squeezed his shoulder in response.
Felipe thought about the many times his family would help the Lopezes plant their crops, and vice versa...the Sundays the two families spent together, as they always did...and the many times they had visited one another just for the fun of it. Felipe welcomed every chance he received to visit his godparents. Godfather Lopez would not only tell stories, sing, and play his mandolin, he would tell jokes that made everyone laugh. Even Juan.
I like Godfather Lopez better than Papá, Felipe thought, then winced as guilt surged through him. You're a bad boy! a harsh voice inside him scolded. A good boy loves his father, no matter what! He raised his right hand to wipe off the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.
"I love my wife and nephew, too," Paco said, at last. "My wife's a good woman."
He smiled at his wife, who blushed. "A good wife, good mother—and good cook!"
Alicia laughed. "Gracias. You're a wonderful husband, Paco. And Rafael, here, is a fine boy." Grinning, Rafael tossed his straw sombrero into the air and caught it.
Juan nodded. "Consuela's all right," he admitted, grudgingly. "She works hard and does as she's told. She does what I tell her and don't talk back."
Felipe winced, and Consuela looked at the mats and baskets piled on the burro's back. Juan did not know how to give good compliments. Consuela gazed down at Felipe. "Felipe's such a good boy, so sweet, so lovin' and loyal. He works so hard, too, and so does Juan." Felipe smiled his appreciation of his mother's praise, but Juan just nodded. He tilted his gray felt sombrero.
In spite of the ambivalent feelings toward his father surging inside him, Felipe smiled when the outskirts of the pueblo came into view. He loved to visit San Miguel. And he especially loved to go there with his godfather Lopez and his best friend, Rafael. They were such fun to be with.
When the two families arrived in town, it was already crowded with other peasants. San Miguel consisted of three plazas with several narrow streets. One was paved with cobblestones, and had a gazebo and water fountain in the middle. Caballeros and their families used that plaza. Another consisted of mere dirt, and had only a fountain. Peons used that one on market day.
Whenever a caballero wanted to purchase some item from one of the vendors, he would send one of his servants to make the purchase. That way, he didn't have to sully his hands by dealing directly with a lowly peasant, whom he considered beneath his notice and unworthy of his attention. Consuela sometimes sold her straw-woven items that way.
Market vendors lined the edges of the peons' plaza. The noisy crowd chattered nonstop as the two families selected a stretch of empty ground to display their goods on. The two women spread woolen blankets on the bare ground, and arranged their goods so that every passerby would see them.
"I'll see you later, Alicia." Paco kissed his wife and hugged his nephew. Felipe threw his arms around his godfather's waist and hugged him tightly. Paco hugged him back.
"See you later, Felipe." He ruffled the boy's hair and patted Rafael's shoulder.
Paco and Juan ambled toward a place that sold pulque, the fermented juice of the maguey plant. Juan drank it all the time, and often became drunk.
"What are we gonna do?" Felipe asked.
"Sell these." Consuela gestured toward the baskets, mats, and herbs. Felipe wrinkled his nose. He loved to visit town, but not to help his mother sell or barter her goods.
"Por favor, can Rafael and I play?" Felipe begged.
His mother nodded. "Si. But stay here in the plaza where Godmother Lopez and I can see you. If you want to go to the church to see the padre, you can, but tell us first."
"Can we?" Rafael hopped. The women nodded.
The boys raced toward the church. Felipe had had his first communion in late June. Ever since then, he had attended catechism class on Saturday afternoons with Rafael, to get ready for confirmation. And now, when he attended Mass, he got to eat the special Eucharist bread and to drink the grape juice with everyone else.
"Felipe, remember when Padre Pablo made us learn to sacrifice and stuff?" Rafael said, as if reading Felipe's mind. "I hated that! I didn't want to do that sort of stuff."
Felipe grimaced. "Me, neither! It sure was hard."
Rafael picked up a rock and threw it at the side of the church. It knocked over a wooden bucket standing on the edge of the porch. The bucket tipped over with a thud; jalapeno peppers tumbled out, every which way.
"Rafael! You come here!" Alicia's voice sounded stern.
Rafael winced. As he slowly approached his angry aunt, dragging his feet, Felipe watched. You did it again, Felipe thought, shaking his head. You're always gettin' in trouble.
The little boy turned around and trotted toward the church. He did not want to watch his best friend getting spanked. As he approached the porch, the sound of pounding hooves startled him. "Felipe, hijo! Look out!" Consuela screamed.
Felipe whirled around. A soldier on a galloping horse was racing right towards him! Before Felipe had a chance to move out of the way, the horse slammed right into him, knocking him against the church wall!
END OF CHAPTER 2